Hi, my name is Monica and I was homeschooled my entire schooling life. And I had a tremendous social life thanks to homeschool groups in my local area (just in case you thought homeschoolers don’t have a social life…). 

Oh and we had proms, a basketball team, cheerleaders, and “popular” girls and guys. Homeschooling, when done right, is a lot like traditional school systems, but we are doing our work at home, at different times, with different curriculum and all taught by different people.

A lot of times, it was self-learning.

And I believe being homeschooled prepared me for being an entrepreneur. Looking back, I know the foundation of opening my own business came from what I was taught to do naturally through being homeschooled. 

Here are a few areas I feel I can contribute being homeschooled got me ready for being an entrepreneur and how you can implement some of these things into your own entrepreneur experience.

Excel at What I was Great At

I loved English, or rather, writing. I loved writing books and so my mom found a curriculum that taught me to write a book during a school year. That was the entire purpose of that curriculum was to get me to write a book.

I did not excel in math and at one point, refused to do a math book because it was made for people who were good at math (in my opinion). My mom had to find me another math book that was more of my level and style.

My poor mom and the things she had to go through with me…

My mom saw what I was good at and gathered curriculum to help me achieve and excel in these areas. Because of this, I am able to excel in the area I love now, which is blogging (aka writing).

I was held Accountable for My Outcomes

My little brother has autism and my mom focus a lot of the time was on teaching him and getting him an education. That left a lot of accountability on myself.

At the beginning of the school year, my mom would tell me what she expected out of me. For example, I needed to take a test for history every two weeks, which gave me time to read the chapter and study for the test. My mom did not stay on top of me to make sure I was doing what she told me to do, I had to hold myself accountable.

Now my success as a business owner comes from me being accountable to myself and the actions I put forth in my marketing. I have to plan out my work and work out my plan, just like I did when I was homeschooled.

I was taught Outside the Box Thinking Skills

Since we didn’t go to a traditional school, we could think any way we wanted to. I had no one telling me how to think about a problem or situation. I had to figure it out on my own within my own terms. In a sense, I got to make my own rules.

These rules were creating what way works best for me and my style of learning or gathering information. There was no teacher telling me how I should apply this rule or that rule to make this or that situation work. I got to problem solve on my own.

Isn’t that what being an entrepreneur is all about, making your own rules, problem-solving on your own, and gathering knowledge the way you work best and then presenting that to others effectively?

Organization is My Middle Name

Every year, my mom took us planner shopping (that is probably where my obsession with planners came from) where we could pick out the planner we wanted so we could write down our daily school work activities. 

This taught me how to become organized with my work at an early age. Every week, I would plan my upcoming week, scheduling out my reading, tests, studying and what lesson I was on in a certain subject. 

Today, I still use this vital skill to plan my marketing and business work within both my weekly planner and my bullet journal. I am still organized to this day thanks to how my mom organized our schoolwork, which in turn, helped me organize my business.

Were you homeschooled? What were some takeaways that you now implement into your daily business life? Leave me a comment below or hop on over to my Facebook Page and leave me a comment there!

If you were no homeschooled, share how traditional schooling helped you with your business! I would love to read how both ways – homeschooling and public school – helped create the business owner you are today!